Blowing in somewhere does not solve the intermittent problem – Watt solved it?

Roger Caiazza

In October 2023, I published an article here that always blows in the fallacy of green energy proponents’ use to argue that in future power systems, there is no need for large amounts of storage and any new allocables The emission-free resources of wind and solar energy are generated. I recently discovered the U.S. Energy Information Management Hourly Grid Monitor, which provides net production per hour for the next 48 states. This article introduces 2024 energy data, focusing on wind energy relative to the claim that “wind always blows somewhere”.

Wind lulls

I don't think anyone claims that extended low wind and solar resources are not a problem. In September, Parker Gallant noted that Ontario’s Industrial Wind Turbine (IWT) “appeared at parties and almost always everyone left after”, a post describing the province’s wind turbines in 2024 Not doing well in five days in September. I evaluated the performance of the New York 2,454 wind turbine fleet and found that there was an hour of generation of 0.2 MW during this September event. David Theilen uses U.S. Energy Information to manage data from the hourly grid monitor directly, always using this diagram to blow the air.

Figure 1: U.S. Energy Information Management Hour Grid Monitor December 2024

This data

I used the U.S. Energy Information Management Data Dashboard Hour Grid Monitor as the source of the hourly 2024 generation of the energy data used in this analysis. This is “the net and net generation per hour of energy in the next 48 states”, the EIA noted. Setting up widgets enables users to change the time and period, although the hourly data can only last up to 31 days, so I have to import the data monthly. There is another problem. The January generation categories include wind, solar, hydraulic, unknown, others, oil, gas, coal and nuclear. The December generation category changed to battery storage, solar energy with integrated battery storage, pumped storage, unknown energy storage, wind, solar, hydraulic, unknown, others, oil, gas, coal and nuclear. When downloading the data, I did not try to consider different categories.

Figure 2: U.S. Energy Information Management Hourly Grid Monitor

I want to show the installation capacity of different energy sources, but I can only find the EIA value of solar energy -107,400 MW. Figure 3 shows the maximum hourly generation (MW) for the major energy categories in 2024, which makes each energy source installed. Note that maximum solar energy is 75% of the EIA installation capacity. I expect a smaller percentage of maximum wind speed relative to the observed maximum hourly MW.

Figure 3: US Energy Information Management Hour Grid Monitor 2024 Maximum Hour Generation (MW)

Figure 4 lists the U.S. Energy Information Management Hour Grid Monitor 2024 Total Energy (GWH). Frankly, how much wind energy is generated each year. However, totals and averages are not major planning issues – determining how much energy is needed in the worst case is a prerequisite for reliability planning.

Figure 4: U.S. Energy Information Management Hour Grid Monitor 2024 Total Energy (GWH)

Table 1 summarizes the hourly data for national energy in 2024. Solar energy has the most variability because it is not available at night. Wind has 95% variability and oil, with a variability of 99% for peak purposes. Only nuclei have less variability than total energy. The distribution of wind energy output is very obvious.

Table 1: 2024 hour data allocation for US Energy Information Management Grid Monitor

For general ideas about variability across the 48 stroke resources, consider the graph of the annual hourly data in Figure 5.

Figure 5: U.S. Energy Information Management Hour Grid Monitor 2024 Hours of Wind Energy Production (MW)

I can't find a map of wind energy facilities on the EIA website. Synapse Energy has developed an interactive diagram of U.S. power plants, including wind energy facilities, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 6: Synaptic energy map of wind power plants in the United States

Assuming that the EIA wind energy facilities are similar to those used for synaptic energy, it is obvious that the lower 48 are widely distributed. In the next step, I analyzed the time changes.

Table 2 provides wind lull estimates at different thresholds. I evaluated the hourly data to determine when the available wind energy is less than the 6% threshold, the available wind energy (GWH) is available. In the first percentile, only 14,440 MW or less were generated. This level is 15% of the maximum observed hourly wind energy. There are 14 episodes that meet this threshold, with the total energy generated during these periods being 988 GWH. From a planning perspective, maximum duration is important. In a 14-hour period, all lower 48 wind energy facilities were less than 15% of the maximum capacity observed, while the total energy generated was only 29 GWH, which was only 2% of the capacity during this period. At 25 years old^Th In percentile, all wind energy facilities produce 40% of the maximum observation capacity. There were 180 episodes reaching this threshold, and the total energy generated during these periods was 63,430 gwh. Within a maximum duration of 115 hours, all lower 48 wind energy produced less than 40% of the maximum observed capacity, producing a total energy of 2,319 GWH, which is the capacity during the period twenty one%.

Table 2: US EIA Grid Monitor 2024 Hours of Wind Lulls

discuss

Trying to infer this data to determine resource gaps in a particular region is a range. A complex analysis is needed to address the location of wind energy facilities, the interconnection between facilities and the generation generated from other resources every hour. However, guessing the impact using data is illuminating.

To take advantage of the wind blowing in a certain place, it is necessary to upgrade the transmission system. Assuming that transmission is available, backup energy is still obviously needed. If the entire wind energy system needs to generate 50% of the maximum observational capacity to cover local and distant energy needs, note that this analysis found that only 40% of the maximum available 25% of the time. The worst case scenario was a 115-hour period, with all the low 48 wind facilities producing only a possible B2,319 GWH of 11,150 GWH. Assuming a maximum of 50% is needed to support the system, there will be an energy gap of 3,256 gwh over this 115-hour period. The activity requires storage space between $482 and $130.2 billion, and the cost is $148/kWh to $400/kWh.

Recently, Russ Schussler (planning engineer) published an article that the intermittent problem solved here may be solved: “Due to its intermittent, long-term problems related to wind and solar energy It is possible and possible to improve technology and technology and reduce costs. “I think it is actually impossible. It is necessary to upgrade electric transmission systems, deploy short-term storage, and develop and deploy emission-free resources to address short-term and infrequent times and to somehow fund these resources through these constraints.

Importantly, even if intermittent can be addressed, Schusler considers fatal flaws:

Overcoming intermittent, although at best it can add complex and expensive resources, this brings us around a huge mountain range. Where will grid support come from? Wind, solar energy and batteries provide energy through electronic inverters. In fact, they rely on and are supported by conventional rotary machines. Basic reliability services include up and down appreciation capabilities, frequency support, inertia and voltage support. For more details on actual issues, see this release. “Wind and solar energy cannot support the grid” describes the situation and contains links to past posts, giving greater details to the issue.

in conclusion

Green energy advocates the challenge of converting the grid into wind and solar energy rely on the saying that “the wind always blows somewhere”. 2024 wind energy data shows. There is no doubt that proper power reliability resource planning analysis will prove that my intermittent problems are real and that interest around them will be very expensive. Coupled with the grid support issue, the green dream of wind and solar power systems is a fantasy that will never work.

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York's energy and environmental issues of pragmatic environmentalists. This represents his opinion, not his former employer or any other company he contacted with.

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